Kay Ḵosrow Kills Šida, Son of Afrāsiyāb

Location: The David Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark, #217/2006, folio 157a.
Page: 35.2 x 21.8 cm.
Painting: 23.4 x 11.5 cm. including painted spaces between the text columns. (Scaled)
Text area: 28.7 x 14.4 cm. (Scaled)
Signature in the center of the lower margin: raqam-e kamina moʿin-e moṣavver.

The painting is out of place in the manuscript, suggesting that it may have been bound into this section when the painting of Esfandiyār and the Simorgh was removed. The image shows Kay Ḵosrow administering the coup de grace with his dagger through the heart of Šida after he has picked him up and dashed him to the ground. The episode occurs during the last great battle between the Iranians and Turanians. The pictorial elements in this illustration are consistent with those in other scenes of combat in this manuscript, with the onlookers placed on the horizon and in the foreground, the grooms and horses of the combatants placed to either side of them, the distinctive sky, and the use of purple for the jutting crag in the background.

For later versions of this subject also painted by Moʿin see ms C, f.214v and ms.G, f.214

Painting references:
Canby_ Journal_2010, p.73 no. 30 and p.101, fig.33.

Text references:
Warner, IV, pp.175-76.

Photo: Permille Klemp. Courtesy of The David Collection, Copenhagen

Sheila R. Canby
Last Updated: July 3, 2014 | Originally published: 2010